Photos by:

TheFreeClimber.com

On March 14 & 15 British comp climbers were treated to one of the most spectacular climbing structures ever built. Oh, and there was also a comp.

The first ever Ford Skymasters Challenge was touted as a “Gladiator-style climbing competition” and open to any takers. Even though that silly tag-line might have turned off a lot of serious international competitors the comp still saw many of the British national team stepping up to the monster.

The climbers and spectators were treated to over 38 meters of horizontal roof climbing and 100 individual moves on gigantic car-sized volumes swinging in mid-air. The Entre-Prises UK wall, if one can call it that, also featured a “Kalymnos” sector with half a dozen stalactites to weave one’s way through.

If that’s not hard enough to get your head around, picture a full-size Ford Ranger truck hanging from the roof at the end of the climb. Climbers must touch the buzzer attached to the door of the truck to win. (If that’s not awesome product promotion I don’t know what is. Ford also had trucks parked on the floor under the climbers.)

The Skymasters Challenge was held during the Ordnance Survey Outdoors Show in Birmingham, England at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC). The show usually hosts a World Cup bouldering event but this year they called up Mike Weeks of X1sports to create a climbing comp that was one of kind.

His first idea was to have a deep-water solo competition. But the cost of the pool it self would have been more than the wall. “We haven’t completely written it off but are working on a dry pool set up with technology from the movie/stunt world that may replace ropes next year.” He said in a recent Ukclimbing.com interview.

But this year he settled for arguably the most original wall ever designed.

The Setters

So who would step up and set routes on a monster like this? Enter: Steve McClure and Percy Bishton. These two long-time setters combine the elements of yin (McClure’s route ability) and yang (Bishton’s bouldering mind) to come up with routes that can match the extreme nature of the Skymasters wall.

McClure told Routesetter.com before the setting began “The whole route will be a roof essentially, so pretty pumpy – not sure what it’s gonna be like setting on it, bloody hard work I guess!!” We can only imagine. This is quite possibly the steepest, longest artificial wall ever to need routes set upon it. However we were unable to get a report from McClure or Bishton to find out how the setting actually went – so we will indeed have to rely on our imaginations.

In a Ukclimbing.com interview event organizer Mike Weeks said the routes would be ““Up to 7b on the Friday for the general climbing world to compete and then national standard routes on the Saturday – 8a for men and 7c (ish) for women.”

We’ll have to take is word for it. No matter what the grades finally ended up, the routes did the job with one male and one female getting to the final hold…er final truck and walking away with £1200 of the £3000 total purse.

What we don’t have to imagine are the routes. Check out these shaky videos of the men’s & women’s routes.

Dan Bradley

[gv data="O4WJErxQkDU"][/gv]
Over 9 minutes of Beth Monk.

[gv data="hfx_7OfOo9o"][/gv]

Even though the organizers were only hoping to put on a good show with a competition thrown in; next year the idea is to make it a more serious affair with international climbers showing up. My humble advice – get rid of the Gladiators.

Here are the results:

Men
1.Dave Barrans
2. Drew Haigh
3. Tony Musselbrook

Women
1. Micheala Tracey
2. Leah Crane
3. Beth Monks

 |   Subscribe to post | Leave a comment